Back in the 1940s and 50s, professional wrestler George Wagner discovered that being hated could be very good business. As the flamboyant and infuriating “Gorgeous George,” the 5’9” Wagner achieved both fame and fortune as the wrestler everyone loved to hate. In the early ‘60s, a young Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) admitted to using Wagner as a role model (“I’m just so pretty!") on his way to worldwide disdain…and unprecedented wealth. With all due respect to the Detroit Pistons’ “Bad Boys” of the 1980s, what Gorgeous George did for pro wrestling and Ali did for boxing, the current Miami Heat team is doing for NBA basketball. They are truly the team fans love to hate and ticket-buyers are showing that they’ll pay a premium price to let the Heat, and their decidedly-unpopular (outside of South Beach) triumvirate of Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh know exactly how they feel. Saturday night the Heat play the Bulls at the United Center. Next Saturday, the Bulls host Lebron’s former team, the Cavaliers. I took a quick look at stubhub.com and ticket prices are generally twice as much for the Heat as the Cavs and nearly three times as much for courtside seats. Sure, the Heat are a better team, but it’s clear that there’s more to it than that. Lebron recently suggested that his team be referred to as “The Heatles.” It was a nice try by the former “King”…but try “The Hate-Ls.” Good for business, though.
Not just hate, I think. Fans would pay double to see Wade and Lebron each. Regardless of dislike, if you get a chance to see Lebron and Wade and Bosh (though nobody really cares about him) all at once, you do it, and you pay some extra dime to do it. They have the potential to completely change the power structure in the NBA. Of course, it's awfully nice to see that they haven't... But they still might.
Hi Good Hope. You may be right...fans have always paid extra to see the stars. However, as a road draw, I firmly believe that the Heat are more than the sum of their star-studded parts. Lots of folks are paying, in part, for the privilege of booing multi-millionaires lustily. It's a morality play with a NBA game in the middle.
The smart thing about Jackson and Jordan was that they got on the good side of that morality play. "We play the game of basketball the right way..." Derrick has a chance to do the same. Twould be awesome to see.
